It was the topography of a trout stream which first set my thoughts in the direction of local business history, and then led to broader fields of research. Mill ponds and crumbling masonry are more or less traditional parts of the New England landscape. I should be willing to pass them over with the customary casual notice, were it not that increasing familiarity with some of Massachusetts' “backwoods” country began to reveal what looked like a remarkable pattern of local development. There was a positively idyllic stage of research when, with fly rod in hand, I examined the dams and sluiceways on half a dozen local streams, and pondered the archeological evidences of antique industry. Many questions came to mind. Too early for a place in the Industrial Revolution, too numerous to fit neatly into the colonial-agrarian pattern — what system of economy did these ruins represent ? Might they not stand apart, a system of their own, drawing from the earlier and nourishing the later? The phase of inquiry succeeding superficial curiosity led to local libraries and county records. It seemed wise to concentrate initial research efforts in one area, and on one representative watercourse.

The accompanying picture of a pawnbroker's shop and sign was taken in Boston in 1946. The sign of the three balls is a common sight in the poorer sections of many American cities, and its meaning is always the same: the balls signify that within the shop loans may be obtained on the pledge of personal property. This type of loan is centuries old: it existed in ancient Greece at the time of Pericles and in ancient Rome at the time of Augustus. Professional money-lenders, either Jews or Lombards, reappeared in the Middle Ages, and their activities elicited the opposition of the Church and the hatred of the populace. Attempts to get rid of the Jewish or Lombard pawnbrokers were repeatedly made, but the result was always the same: the need of consumers for credit accommodation was so great that the money-lenders were usually recalled after a short while.